So far, there aren’t too many interesting switches. The two most intriguing to me are –record-mode and –playback-mode:

// Chrome supports a playback and record mode. Record mode saves *everything*
// to the cache. Playback mode reads data exclusively from the cache. This
// allows us to record a session into the cache and then replay it at will.
const wchar_t kRecordMode[] = L"record-mode";
const wchar_t kPlaybackMode[] = L"playback-mode";

What I like most is the fact that I can keep up with releases and what is under the covers. Complete transparency! So… for all of you Google Fearing Americans out there… pick up a C++ for Dummies book and read along with the rest of us.

This is a big time for my family this year. In fact, it is bigger than it ever has been before because we have three out of four members returning to school. Robin has finally been able to return to school now that both girls will be in elementary school. Thing One and Thing Two will be starting at a new (to them) charter school, and this will be Thing Two's first time in a five full day format now that she is entering kindergarten.

It is really exciting and a little bit stressful. The charter school that we found this summer is the closest thing to our desired philosophy than we ever thought possible to find in this country. It has a great community feel to it and sort of brings the village back to the equation (like the proverb of unknown origin says: "It takes a [whole] village to raise a [single] child."). This new school is one of the exciting parts. The other, is that after about eight years, Robin now gets the opportunity to return to school. We never really thought it would take this long because our plans involved only the first child (which was on the way during the planning).

The stressful part… number one would be "the unknown." (interesting article I found in researching this post). For Thing One, this is a new school with new teachers and new… well everything. Thing Two gets the same along with the added "I will go to school every day…?"

For Robin I can only imagine. It was about eight years that I was not in school before returning back in 1999. It was Robin that encouraged me to return and she was the one that ultimately made it a reality. I was one hell of a procrastinator and she did not let me slip by my usual "I guess I forgot…" excuses because she was always there to remind me of cut-off dates and what needed to be done to get enrolled. She then went on to support my bachelor's degree even after our first daughter was born, and double did for my Master's while our second daughter was born. She has a lot to offer the world education and I'm so happy that she can finally get her turn.

So how can I be the supportive one this time around? I will be driving the girls to school everyday, and also take vacation days their first week to be there the whole day. I will be changing my work schedule a bit to allow Robin to get to her class one evening a week. I will also try to provide her space and time to work on her projects.

Writing this blog was a nice experience for me. It allowed me to process the upcoming changes in our household as well as land on some interesting articles and photos online. I'll leave you with one last funny that I came across.

Since my last post about myspace, I have learned a lot more about their situation. In fact, just yesterday I read an article (from Baseline) that gave me a whole new sense of deep respect for (if anything) the technical team at MySpace.

Facts like:

“the site now handles almost 40 billion page views a month.”

This sort of brings the issues into perspective. If you have ever been frustrated with MySpace, or know someone that is, I recommend referring to this article.

Nope, not a spelling error… Chrismukkah is what we celebrated with my wife and kids.

The scene was perfectly set on Chrismukkah eve after the girls had gone nighty-night.

The gifts were actually wrapped by Robin on the previous night whilst I worked like one of Santa’s Maccabees on the childrens’ new bikes. I have to give an enormous “hats-off” to my dear ol’ Dad for dealing with late hours, Engrish assembly instructions, clumsy hands (yup, I inherited those too pop), and tiny parts in order to complete the masterpieces pictured above.

It was a wonderful day with the wife and kids, and I hope to have many more in the future! The day would not have been complete without the pièce de résistance:
Thanks Robin! 😉